San Bernardino's Andrea Travis-Miller voted in as new SGVCOG executive director

For the first time in 17 years, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments has a new executive director.

By a unanimous vote, the governing board on Thursday approved the hiring of Andrea Travis- Miller, the acting city manager for the city of San Bernardino, to lead the regional planning agency beginning Feb. 19.

"It is another step forward for the COG. It gives us a measure of permanence," said John Fasana, a Duarte councilman and member of the COG board.

Travis-Miller was introduced to the board and received a round of applause.

"I'm excited about the opportunity, and I look forward to the challenges," she said.

Before the historic vote, she apologized for being late - she had just returned from federal bankruptcy court on a matter for the troubled city.

She said during her time remaining as acting city manager, "I want to assist the new city manager so there will be a seamless transition."

Travis-Miller received a two-year contract and will earn a salary of $175,000 per year, the board announced. She will be a full-time CalPERS employee but will have to pay the entire 7 percent of her retirement. She will have 15 vacation days, 10 days of administrative leave and a maximum of 20 sick days, according to her contract. She will be granted a $400-per- month car allowance, said COG attorney Dick Jones.

She will replace Interim Executive Director Fran DeLach, who will step down. DeLach, who has worked as city manager of Covina and Azusa, is semi-retired and said he did not apply for the permament job.

For the past eight months, Travis-Miller has been heading San Bernardino's efforts to reverse a declining budget and emerge from a municipal bankruptcy filing. She's played a critical role in that arduous process, leaving some San Bernardino officials to lament the loss to their city.

She said it will be hard to leave the people of San Bernardino, whom she said are smarting from the effects of a bad economy, a high crime rate and a crisis in government.

"The community of San Bernardino has been good to me. I want to do everything I can before I leave to assist them," she said.

Kevin Stapleton, the mayor of Covina and a COG board member, admired her loyalty to the city.

"Even when the city manager bailed, she stuck it out. It is that kind of loyalty and integrity you want to see in an executive director," he said.

The COG is made up of 31 cities, Los Angeles County and local water districts and has worked on building railroad overpasses with its subsidiary, the Alameda Corridor East, as well as helping cities meet the state's new A.B. 32 rules for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency proposals.

But the COG came under a cloud in July when the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division raided the Pasadena home and Alhambra offices of longtime Executive Director Nick Conway. Conway was arrested and charged with four felony counts of conflict of interest stemming from contracts he handled for the regional planning agency. He has pleaded not guilty and his preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 29, according to Assistant District Attorney Dana Aratani.

The crux of the conflict-of- interest allegations is whether Conway brought in this money as a financial benefit to himself - because his company was typically paid to manage the grants - or whether that benefit was the appropriate result of his duties as the agency's contracted staff.

The COG has been without a permanent executive director since placing Conway on paid leave in June and then firing him and his company, Arroyo Associates, on Oct. 31. The longtime executive director had become synonymous with the planning organization he ran for 17 years.

Over the past year, it has played an influential role in transportation matters, including support of the expansion of the Metro Gold Line.